Stuart, the phrase you're looking for is "gain-of-function".
You're asking why the scientists didn't select for/serial passage a natural SARSr-CoV (that already infects human cells) so it spreads among mammals via the air.
As it is, they already serially passaged this close relative to SARS-CoV-2 in humanized mice, and thankfully found that it didn't become more virulent or develop a preference for respiratory transmission in mammals.
In contrast, this 2018 paper describes a more distant SARSr-CoV derived from the guts of bats that was inoculated into the brains of suckling rats - revealing a surprising preference for replication in the lungs. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
If any peer reviewer asks the scientists to try forcing a respiratory transmission of this close SARS-CoV-2 relative in humanized mice or other mammalian models of Covid-19 disease, the journal editor should properly admonish the reviewer.
As a added precaution, scientists who casually suggest serial passaging of natural viruses that infect human cells until they are airborne among mammals or acquire features known to confer pandemic potential should be banned from accessing sequences or strains of natural viruses.
What we don't want to see is scientists around the world creating animal models to prove that they can transform natural viruses from the wild so that they become effectively airborne among mammals and evolve pandemic features - for the purposes of publishing high impact papers.
How are scientists supposed to respond to a reviewer's criticism that they didn't do a gain-of-function experiment and develop an animal model that selects for human pandemic potential?
Peer reviewer: "I didn't tell them to do the gain-of-function experiment. I just told them that to support their conclusions, they should use this specific animal model and prove that it can result in gain-of-function."
Thanks for the reminder. I forgot that Stuart and other virologists on the Cell journal Holmes et al. critical review used information about SARS-CoV-2 infection in wild type non-humanized mice as a straw man to "debunk" a serial passaging #OriginOfCovid
I'm not saying that I think SARS-CoV-2 came from serial passaging in the lab but this straw man argument made it seem like these virologists were ignorant of the various animal models that could've been used for selection for enhanced pathogenicity and transmissibility.
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"Even as the very real chance remains that the search for new viruses led to this [pandemic], scientists hoping to prevent viral outbreaks continue to seek out new bat coronaviruses and other potential pandemic pathogens around the world." theintercept.com/2022/07/02/vir…
Reeder carries a card in her wallet she hopes medical professionals will read should she herself wind up in the emergency room with a mysterious infectious disease someday... ‘Attention medical personnel: I study wildlife disease. Here’s all the things you should test me for...’
Reeder describes herself and other researchers in her field as “a little bit like cowboys and cowgirls... When I first started this work, nobody was wearing PPE... I thought we were good if I didn’t have my coffee cup on the same table when I was doing dissections.”
If you're a scientist, you should understand the psychological effect of telling another scientist that they're wrong unless they can do X, Y, and Z. It's quite likely that many of the scientists will go on and do XYZ and maybe even more to prove that they're right.
There's no way this devastating pandemic started as a result of virus hunting and/or gain-of-function research, say experts who advocated for, funded, or collaborated on virus hunting and/or gain-of-function research. usrtk.org/biohazards-blo…
Till today, the journal @NatureMedicine that published the Proximal Origin correspondence refuses to correct the piece to disclose the potential conflicts of interest and participation of experts who are well known gain-of-function proponents.
Some people say that if only every country had acted in a timely and correct manner, the excess death toll of this pandemic wouldn't be in the millions.
We cannot count on every country acting in a timely and correct manner every time a new pandemic pathogen emerges...
1st there doesn't seem to be any pandemic treaty in place to make sure that information about emerging pathogens is shared in a timely manner with global parties.
Under these circumstances, key info about transmission, symptoms, genome etc. could be withheld for weeks to months.
2nd most countries are not pandemic ready and I'm not optimistic enough to believe they will mostly be pandemic ready for the next pathogen with as yet unknown abilities. Overly rigid pandemic response plans can actually make things worse.
Most people can agree that US tax dollars should not be sent to China to do gain-of-function research.
The problem is that the researchers/middlemen engaging in said research can get around the existing definitions and there doesn't seem to be any mechanism of accountability...
Reminder that Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, which sent US tax dollars to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for chimeric SARSrCoV and human pathogen MERS research, was able to privately negotiate a way out of being restricted by the GOF definition. theintercept.com/2021/11/03/cor…
Even after breaching their own negotiated definition of what would be considered gain-of-function, the EcoHealth Alliance + Wuhan Institute of Virology pitched extending their chimeric virus work to human pathogen MERS virus. theintercept.com/2021/10/21/vir…